Fremont, California — March 25, 2014 — Corsair, a designer and supplier of high-performance components to the PC hardware market, today announced the immediate availability of the Obsidian Series 450D performance mid-tower PC case. The 450D matches the iconic, brushed aluminum design of the Obsidian series with an increased focus on high-airflow, ensuring your system not only looks great, but runs cool.

Behind the 450D’s aluminum mesh intake grill are dual 140mm AF140L intake fans to direct airflow straight to a PC’s hottest component, the graphics card. The rear AF120L 120mm fan keeps the airflow moving smoothly and five other optional fan locations give you serious cooling flexibility. The 450D’s fan mounts also accommodate a wide range of water-cooling radiators, with room for up to a 360mm radiator in the roof, a 280mm radiator in the front, and a 240mm radiator in the floor.

The 450D also boasts all of the features that make the Obsidian Series a favorite among enthusiasts around the world. Easily accessible dust filters on the roof, front, and bottom ensure your system will stay looking its best, while modular tool-free 3.5”/2.5” hard disk mounts offer a wide range of storage options, or can be removed entirely to prioritize airflow.

“From day one, our Obsidian Series has made our case lineup a force to be reckoned with.” said George Makris, Product Manager at Corsair. “With Obsidian 450D we’ve now added a mid-tower case that has outstanding air cooling capabilities, but can house lots of water cooling parts, too.”

Obsidian Series 450D Specifications

Expansion Room

Three tool-free 3.5”/2.5” combo bays in a modular hard drive cage, with two tool-free 2.5” drive bays behind the motherboard

Pricing, Availability, and Warranty
The Obsidian Series 450D has a suggested retail price of $119.99 in the US and is available in April from Corsair's worldwide network of authorized distributors and resellers. It is backed with a limited 2-year warranty and Corsair’s excellent customer service and technical support.

Introduction and Technical Specifications

Introduction

Courtesy of ASUS

The ASUS ROG Poseidon GTX 780 video card is the latest incarnation of the Republic of Gamer (ROG) Poseidon series. Like the previous Poseidon series products, the Poseidon GTX 780 features a hybrid cooler, capable of air and liquid-based cooling for the GPU and on board components. The AUS ROG Poseidon GTX 780 graphics card comes with an MSRP of $599, a premium price for a premium card .

Introduction and Features

Cooler Master continues to offer a full line of cases, power supplies, and coolers along with numerous other accessories for PC enthusiasts. Today we will be taking a detailed look at Cooler Master’s new V Series 850W power supply.

(Courtesy of Cooler Master)

It has been quite some time since we last reviewed a Cooler Master power supply and we were happy to see one show up recently on the test lab doorstep. We were even happier to learn that the new Cooler Master V Series, which includes three units: the V700, B850 and V1000, are all built by Seasonic, who has a stellar reputation for building some of the best PC power supplies on the planet. All three power supplies in the V Series incorporate all modular cabling, high efficiency (80Plus Gold certified), high quality Japanese made capacitors, a silent 135mm fan with a Fluid Dynamic Bearing, and they come backed by Cooler Master’s 5-year warranty. In addition, the V Series power supplies deliver excellent voltage regulation (particularly on the +12V output) with minimal AC ripple and noise. The Cooler Master V850 power supply is currently selling for $169.99 (newegg.com, March 2014).

Here is what Cooler Master has to say about their new V Series PSUs:

“Developed to be the highest quality, Cooler Master carefully sourced every aspect of the V Series PSU line to produce a high-efficiency and stable power supply. It’s highly efficient even at low loads, extremely stable, and works well beyond the parameters of 80Plus specifications.”

Fremont, California —March 18, 2014 — Corsair, a designer and supplier of high-performance components to the PC hardware market, today announced the Carbide SeriesTM SPEC range of gaming PC cases in three models: the SPEC-01, SPEC-02, and SPEC-03. Characterized by aggressive styling, modern features, superior air cooling, and expandability, the SPEC range offers everything gamers need from a case and nothing they don’t.

All three SPEC cases have been designed with PC gamers in mind, stripping out the unnecessary and leaving a lean and mean looking chassis that delivers great cooling and makes PC building quick and easy. The cases boast modern features such as USB 3.0 ports, native SSD mounts, and extensive cable-routing options, as well as a huge side panel window to show off the hardware inside. The black-painted interior is optimized to direct unobstructed airflow to the PC’s hottest components, with a front-mounted LED fan providing ample cooling. Tool-free drive bays and removable dust filters add to SPEC’s wide array of high-end features.

There’s plenty of room to expand inside too, with support for even the longest graphics cards, front fan mounts for dual 140mm and 120mm fans, and seven expansion slots. Whatever version of SPEC gamers choose, they will have a case with the flexibility to handle years of upgrades.

“Entry level cases are usually antiquated, old designs. Some still have room for floppy drives,” said George Makris, Product Manager at Corsair. “With the addition of the Carbide Series SPEC to our line, gamers can now get a case with modern features and great styling combined with superior cooling and expandability at a fantastic price.”

Carbide Series SPEC Specifications

Pricing, Availability, and Warranty

The SPEC-01 case has a suggested retail price of $49.99 USD and the SPEC-02 and SPEC-03 cases have suggested retail prices of $59.99 USD. The cases will be available in April from Corsair’s worldwide network of authorized distributors and resellers. All are backed with a limited 2-year warranty and Corsair customer service and technical support.

Introduction and Technical Specifications

Introduction

Courtesy of Corsair

Corsair expanded from a known presence in the memory space to well-respected entity in the component market, offering everything from cases to all-in-one water coolers. Their newest cooler, the Hydro Series™ H75 Liquid CPU Cooler, features a 120mm x 25mm radiator with dual fans and a copper-based water block. The H75 unit includes mounting support for all current Intel and AMD processor offerings. To gage the performance of the cooler, we set it against several other high-performance liquid and air-based coolers. With a retail MSRP of $84.99, the Hydro Series™ H75 cooler is priced to be competitive.

Courtesy of Corsair

The Hydro Series™ H75 cooler was designed to be a "one size fits all" type cooler, having no space issues fitting in most cases including some of the larger mITX style cases. Corsair used Asetek as an OEM to assist in manufacturing the H75 and appears to be based on the Asetek 550LC all-in-one cooler. As we've seen previously with Corsair OEM products, Corsair had a hand in tweaking the cooler design to meet their performance and aesthetic expectations. The radiator in an all aluminum, thin-finned unit designed to effectively dissipate heat from the liquid medium using the two include Corsair-branded fans.

Courtesy of Corsair

The water block is composed of a two part acrylic top piece, housing the unit's electronics and pump, held to a copper cold plate secured with an inner and outer ring of screws. The inner ring of screws are counter-sunk to prevent mating-related obstruction and was polished to a mirror-like luster.

With watercooling becoming more and more common some manufactures are trying to make it easier by designing cases which are set up to accommodate radiators. Phanteks' Enthoo Primo Ultimate is a pefect example as it ships with a bracket to help you install a radiator with up to two 140mm fans. Pet owners will love the filtres set up on all intake ports on this case including ones on the bottom which are very easily accessible. [H]ard|OCP were very impressed with this case; even more so when you consider this is Phanteks' first foray into this part of the cooling market.

"Phanteks is known for its wide variety of fans, but is broadening its brush stroke by now building its own computer cases. The Enthoo Primo Ultimate Chassis is a full tower computer case that promises the "Ultimate Water Cooling Solution," as well as removable filters, and a thermally isolated PSU location."

Two months ago, Valve presented a new prototype of their Steam Controller with a significantly changed button layout. While the overall shape and two thumbpads remained constant, the touchscreen disappeared and the face buttons more closely resembled something from an Xbox or PlayStation. Another prototype image has been released, ahead of GDC, without many changes.

Valve is still in the iteration process for its controller, however. Ten controllers will be available at GDC, each handmade. This version has been tested internally for some undisclosed amount of time, but this will be the first time that others will give their feedback since the design that was shown at CES. The big unknown is: to what level are they going to respond to feedback? Are we at the stage where it is about button sizing? Or, will it change radically - like to a two-slice toaster case with buttons inside the slots.

GDC is taking place March 17th through the 21st. The expo floor opens on the 19th.

Installation

When the Radeon R9 290 and R9 290X first launched last year, they were plagued by issues of overheating and variable clock speeds. We looked at the situation several times over the course of a couple months and AMD tried to address the problem with newer drivers. These drivers did help stabilize clock speeds (and thus performance) of the reference built R9 290 and R9 290X cards but caused noise levels to increase as well.

The real solution was the release of custom cooled versions of the R9 290 and R9 290X from AMD partners like ASUS, MSI and others. The ASUS R9 290X DirectCU II model for example, ran cooler, quieter and more consistently than any of the numerous reference models we had our hands on.

But what about all those buyers that are still purchasing, or have already purchased, reference style R9 290 and 290X cards? Replacing the cooler on the card is the best choice and thanks to our friends at NZXT we have a unique solution that combines standard self contained water coolers meant for CPUs with a custom built GPU bracket.

Our quick test will utilize one of the reference R9 290 cards AMD sent along at launch and two specific NZXT products. The Kraken X40 is a standard CPU self contained water cooler that sells for $100 on Amazon.com. For our purposes though we are going to team it up with the Kraken G10, a $30 GPU-specific bracket that allows you to use the X40 (and other water coolers) on the Radeon R9 290.

Inside the box of the G10 you'll find an 80mm fan, a back plate, the bracket to attach the cooler to the GPU and all necessary installation hardware. The G10 will support a wide range of GPUs, though they are targeted towards the reference designs of each:

That is pretty impressive but NZXT will caution you that custom designed boards may interfere.

The installation process begins by removing the original cooler which in this case just means a lot of small screws. Be careful when removing the screws on the actual heatsink retention bracket and alternate between screws to take it off evenly.

A lot of diverse topics arose from the Corsair blogs, lately. This time, they compiled fan questions and enlisted mechanical switch and keyboard manufacturer, Cherry Corporation, to provide answers. Coming in at over two-thousand words, it is quite lengthy.

Many of the questions seemed to come from long-term fans of their mechanical keyboards. One person asked whether a specific ergonomic keyboard (G80-5000) would make a return, while another inquired about Cherry-branded Hall Effect switches (presumably for analog controls). In all, if you are interested in mechanical keyboards, it is worth a read. They kept a little secret sauce, secret, but otherwise seemed pretty open in their responses.

Introduction and Technical Specifications

Introduction

Courtesy of SilverStone

SilverStone Technology is a well known brand in the computer component space, offering high quality solutions for everything from cases to case-mounted fan controllers and displays. Their CPU air-coolers are some of the best in the industry with the latest incarnation being part of the Argon Series. The Argon Series AR01 CPU cooler is made for optimal cooling of your Intel socket 115X or AMD-based systems, comprised of a single aluminum radiator tied to a copper base-plate via a set of copper heat pipes with a 120mm fan for heat dissipation. To prove out the performance of the AR01 unit, we tested put it up against other high-performance liquid and air-based coolers. At a retail MSRP of $34.99, the AR01 cooler has a great performance to price ratio for its cooling potential.